Hillary Clinton White House Records Off-Limits to Opponents

Opposition researchers would love to get their hands on the nearly 2 million pages of off-limit documents generated by Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's office during her eight years as first lady, but it's not going to happen.

The Presidential Records Act allows federal archivists to censor the materials now at the William J. Clinton Presidential Library, The Los Angeles Times reports, because they contain confidential advice that is permitted to be kept secret at least until after the 2008 presidential election.

That's good news for Clinton, whose stormy years trying to remake the nation's health care system and other activities would be a target for dirt-diggers.

"Those files — that's the mother lode of opposition research," Ray McNally, a Republican political consultant in Sacramento told The Los Angeles Times. "Opposition researchers would be very hungry to see what's there."

"In 2 million pieces of paper, would opposition researchers hope to find one where she wrote a memo saying, 'I wish I'd never gotten involved in health care?' Sure. That's what they'd love to find," added Bob Shrum, senior political strategist in Democratic Sen. John F. Kerry's 2004 presidential campaign.

Barriers to access won't keep interested parties from trying. The National Archives, which is cataloging more than 20 million pages of documents from the eight-year administration, is facing at least 250 requests under the Freedom of Information Act. One group, Judicial Watch, which dogged the Clinton administration until its end in January 2001, has sued the government in hopes of achieving faster responses.